


Rubeus Hagrid and the Pseudopolis Dragon Club

by purpleshrub (Viola25)



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 12:31:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4101013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viola25/pseuds/purpleshrub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sybil Ramkin and Hagrid would get along ~splendidly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rubeus Hagrid and the Pseudopolis Dragon Club

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking (thanks to Mark Reads Discworld) about how Sybil Ramkin and Hagrid would get along ~splendidly. And then this happened.  
> -I see this happening pre-readers first meeting these characters.  
> -I own the fact that I can’t write in Hagrid’s voice at all. Dropping the “g” from gerunds is all I can do I’m sorry.

_If he’d really thought about it Hagrid woulda been a little sad the dragons were all so small… but he was having too much fun to think about it. He had a little dragon on one shoulder and another in his arms like a little baby, and was listenin to a long, careful description of a dragon’s family tree._

* * *

He’d spotted the flyer by chance, really, at Simone’s Supplies when he was pickin up meat for the thestral herd. (He thought there might a shy hippogriff getting at some of the food too, but hadn’t got a glimpse yet.)

He was waitin while Simone, a sharp-faced witch with a nice collection of scars from old burns and bites, went in back to get the order together. The shop was around the back end of Hogsmeade, handy to Hagrid, bein’ he was at Hogwarts and all, but it wasn’t always there.

It didn’t bother Hagrid either way. Could be Simone had it under Fidelius charm or such, had a tricky customer inside or a werewolf’d caught her scent and she was layin low a while. Or maybe she shrank the shop up and carried with her in her pocket when she went out gatherin supplies. If there was only a wall and no door in it when Hagrid showed up, he’d head on up to the Hog’s Head and try later, go to Diagon Alley if it were urgent.

He looked at the bulletin board while he waited. Nice collection of papers, some posters for a league quidditch match, some movin pictures of happy customers with their pets, puffskeins and kneazles mostly. Not many people had interestin animals as pets. Ads on thick parchment, one offerin a niffler for sale, one lookin to hire someone to clear grindylows from the lake at the country home.

And one piece of thin muggle paper, pale like a fresh egg. It read, “50th Annual Pseudopolis Dragon Club Show.” Hagrid grabbed the flyer and held it close to his face to make sure he saw it right. It was kind of confusin; what was “This 32nd of Spune in our Year of The Thoughtful Cabbage”?

He liked the description, though: “The following classes are offered in each sex and age: Bred By Exhibitor, Ankh-Morpork Bred, Open, Winners.

“The Pseudopolis Dragon Club offers a Silver Plated Trophy for Best in Show. The Leash offers a Perpetual Sterling Silver Challenge Cup for Best in Show, if Ankh-Morpork-Bred. The Pseudopolis Dragon Club offers Rosettes with PDC Medal in center for First, Second, Third and Fourth Prize Winners in each Breed/Variety Group.”

Was this what it sounded like? Was there really a show for dragons?

Simone said she’d get him a two-way portkey if it meant so much to him and that he’d better not lose it.

* * *

Hagrid wasn’t exactly sure where “here” was but it didn’t seem to be a problem. He watched wide-eyed as handlers traded tips about getting the best color flame out in the ring and sprinkled flecks of glitter on the dragon’s scales to help their luster.

In each ring, a slump of swamp dragons lay in their handlers’ arms, until the judge beckoned with one craggy finger and the dragons were brought up one by one to a small table, their feet arranged just so. The handlers used one hand to hold up the tail, the other to hold up the far (from the judge) wing, leash looped around the neck.

Hagrid listened with delight as two old witches gossiped about the one in the ring. “Third clutch this year and not a hen among them,” tsked one.

“S’why she keeps forcing clutches,” said the other, “she knows you can’t sustain a breeding program with just pewmets.”

“Well I’m not giving her any of my cobbs, the last I lent her exploded. She’s so unlucky lately.”

The woman in question had bad luck continue; when the judge finished his exam and held up a bit of firewood the weak green flame barely singed it, and the dragon only flew a couple inches off the ground before slumping back to the table, looking exhausted.

Hagrid was the only one not showing a dragon it seemed and was mostly ignored, except for an occasional absent-minded question about what breed he had. “I don’t have one,” he had to admit. “I’d like one though!” True, he’d prefer a bigger critter, but maybe they grew. And they were still great little critters.

He was sittin by Ring One just watchin the groups come and go, when he realized a girl was sittin near him. She looked like she’d been cryin and Hagrid looked away, embarrassed. When she realized he’d looked, her back went straight and she looked determined. “How do you do?” Hand outstretched, chin up. Gryffindor, that one, all the way.

“Hiya,” said Hagrid. “I’m Hagrid.”

“My name is Sybil.”

“Do you have a—” “What’s your favorite—” they began together, and suddenly they were laughin and Sybil was tellin him they didn’t allow dragons in her dorm, it was so unfair. She wanted one at home but was afraid it wouldn’t be looked after when she was at school, so it had to wait. She said some of the girls had birds at least as messy and smelly as any swamp dragon. 

There were a few girls from Sybil’s school—forced to be there by their parents. Hagrid didn’t hear what one whispered to Sybil as she went by but Sybil blinked back tears again. Without thinkin Hagrid muttered an itchin’ spell at the girl, but nothin happened.

So he said he wanted to look around more, and he and Sybil walked together and watched the little Featherstone dragons gettin groomed, and ate biscuits shaped like dragons, and bought Christmas tree decorations shaped like dragons (“made of dried and pressed flower petals, your dragon won’t be tempted to eat it at all!”). (The sign said “Hogswatch Dekor-ashins” and Hagrid was gonna ask his new friend about it, but then they saw the “Meet the Breeds” pen and he forgot all about it.

So he was holdin one dragon and had another draped over each shoulder, now, and Sybhil was fiddlin with her camera, whisperin to it. The dragon cradled in his arms snorted and his beard caught fire just a wee bit but the handler was ready and sprayed a water bottle on it til it stopped.

Then the Portkey pinged.

Hagrid reluctantly put the dragons down and hugged Sybil goodbye. She said into his shoulder, “I feel so small next to you. Physically, I mean.”

“Sorry,” said Hagrid. A few people’d asked what he was but he hadn’t answered because he didn’t know what to say and they hadn’t pushed it.

“No, I like it,” she said. “I never get to feel small.”

Hagrid thought maybe he knew why she’d been sad before, but now the Portkey was warming in his pocket. He stepped away from the hug and told her, “Who wants to feel small?” and he didn’t mean anything special by it, but she smiled suddenly like a young sun.

“See you next year, yeah?” she said.

Hagrid nodded. “I hope so, yeah.” And he would.

* * *

 

A few years later Sybil would say they appeared to be from different worlds and that they shouldn’t talk too much about them and hope the magic took care of the rest. So they stuck mostly to dragons. Sybil finished school and told him about the kennel she’d opened in Ankh-Morpork, the Dragon Sanctuary she volunteered at. Hagrid told her all about Norbert and she was sad as Hagrid that Hagrid hadn’t been able to keep him. 

And somehow the Dragon Show always seemed to fall on a quiet weekend at Hogwarts, and later even than that somehow Sybil’s husband always found a few hours to sit with Hagrid or by the crates when Sybil was in the show ring. And somehow with years of different lengths and worlds with different geography they aged apace, and finally one day Hagrid got back to his cottage, and drew a sleepy young pair, hen and cobb, from his pocket; carried them in and made up a bed for them by the fire, breathed in the scent of their chemical magic as he drifted to sleep.

 


End file.
